Shanghailander

When the former building of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China reopened in 2004 as Bund 18, it was the best example of colonial building renovation in Shanghai. The project had all the elements for success, including a building rich with history, a fantastic location, an architect firm specialist in historic renovation brought from Italy and a vision of bringing together wealth and style. The original combination included a number of luxury shops, top level offices, an art gallery, a Chinese restaurant, a western restaurant topped by the now famous Bar Rouge (see post “decadence on the Bund“). With the replacement of the original French restaurant by the highly successful Mr & Ms Bund by Paul Pairet, the combination has faithfully kept in line with the original mix. Introducing a second nightlife spot on the 4th floor, the now gone Lounge 18 (see post “dancing in the bank“), kept in line with the classy and attractive image that was originally created, as mentioned in CNNGO article.

Lounge 18’s successor, CUVVE, does just not fall in the same category. I don’t think I have seen such a carnage since the ruinovation of the Paramount building several years ago (see post “Paramount Suicide“). Although working in one of the best preserved building of Shanghai, the designers have deliberately destroyed or covered any of the heritage fixtures. Years of history, millions and months spent on careful renovation have been destroyed in the 20 days it took to build the new interior. Where the original designers had carefully mixed the old and the new in a very successful and classy way, the ones responsible for this nightmare had no care nor understanding for what they stepped into. It is hard to believe that Bund 18 management allowed this horror to happen after years spent on careful image building. Hopefully the new fixtures will be easily dismantled when the club will cease to exist, as most clubs in Shanghai do not seem to last for very long. Still, this is a great waste of this wonderful space and I fail to see how this fits the Bund 18 brand essence.

The club itself is not so bad, although it is not that special either. From my point of view, the lighting effect is clearly inspired by Spark in Taipei 101, while failing to reach the sophistication of its model. The required ingredients of loud music, lot’s of drinks and gogogirls could turn it into the next nightlife spot, though the lack of originality does not compare very well against competition in town. I am sure the management spent lot’s of money to create it, but it would have been much better in one of brand new towers. Successful clubs in Shanghai have often been part of shopping malls or office buildings, this is just where this one should have landed.

Leaving CUVVE, one find itself stepping back into the sophisticated universe that is the Bund 18 experience, just like waking out of a nightmare. Unfortunately, this nightmare will not go away after tonight. Consequently, CUVVE did not last very long and was replaced by a fancy French restaurant.

After a few days of search, at least 6 people in the Sanzetti pictures (see post: Sam Sanzetti, Shanghai photographer) have been found. You can find some pictures of these people and their original photographs at the following link on Yahoo China: http://news.cn.yahoo.com/newspic/news/19184/?f=E364_3_1

A regular reader of this blog, Ms Liliane Willens (see post: A date with Liliane) had also been photograph by Sam Sanzetti herself and her family. She is currently contacting the Shanghai Israeli Consulate people in charge of the exhibition.

I mentioned Saint-John University in earlier posts. Another famous alumni of the main University of Old Shanghai is Zhou Youguang, the man who invented Pinyin. Born in 1906, he went to the US to work as a Wall Street Banker after graduation. Returning to China after 1949, he lead the committee that created Pinyin, introduced to school in China 1958. The most incredible is that is still alive and writing is own blog on Weibo (in Chinese only).

Read his fascinating story  in the article from Louisa Lim on NPR website.

Imported foreign food in today’s Shanghai is still an essential support for foreigners living in the city. In the nearly 8 years since I have been in the city, local alternatives have been developped but they are rarely matching the original. Moreover, as the foreign communities grows and grows and more and more Chinese people like foreign dishes, import of foreign food is constantly growing. Modern transportation allows to fly in fresh products kept at constant temperature, making possible eating French oysters, Australian yogurts and New Zealand Kiwis in Shanghai.

Old Shanghai consumers of foreign foods did not enjoy such luxury. With the mother land weeks away on a cargo ship, food had to be preserved through various means for transportation. One of the most fragile type of products was dairy that does not keep long, even within a fridge. Above image is a picture of a modern tin of butter that I bought in New Zealand in 2010. Although butter is now mostly imported fresh in controlled temperature, preservation in tins was the only way to bring butter all the way to Old Shanghai. I have to admit that I was quite surprised to find this one, but it seems to be still selling. Butter is used a lot for western cooking, so large quantities of butter were imported in Shanghai. The 1934 “Trade of China” shows that 701,6 tonnes of butters were imported in China in 1933 and 746 in 1934. They were mostly imported through the ports Shanghai and Tianjin, mainly from Australia… and New Zealand.

Local farms also produced milk and milk products, as advertised on several pages of “All about Shanghai and its environs” including picture left. There was quite a number of dairy farms in today North Jing An district, in particular today’s Yan Ping Lu. The daily milk delivery system (like in the UK) is still in place in the old parts of the city center, though it is not much used anymore. In 1937, there was 10 dairy farms in the classified section of the Shanghai Dollar Directory, the local yellow pages. Just like today, local production was far from satisfying demand.

For transportation, milked was condensed and sweetened before being canned. Condensed milk can still be found in China, though it is more a delicacy than a main food ingredient. However, like in Hong Kong, Vietnam or Malaysia today, condensed milk was clearly a common product in old Shanghai. One of the major company importing condensed milk then was Nestle, already having established presence in old shanghai. 2,229.8 tonnes of condensed milk was imported in China in 1933 and 2,515.5 in 1934 mostly from the USA, The Netherlands and Switzerland.

For more on milk supply in Shanghai, go to post « Shanghai milkman ».

In the recent post “Shanghai exiles“, I mentioned our meeting with Isabelle and Raymond Chao. Isabelle talked about a friend who owned a Harley Davidson in late 1940’s Shanghai. As I regularly drive up the Bund with my 1930’s sidecar replica, I could relate to this very well although I did not see any picture then. It’s a few weeks later that I received the enclosed picture. This is Isabelle on the Harley-Davidson in Shanghai, around 1948, a very different look from her picture on the above mentioned post. With sun glasses and leather jacket, there is something really cool about this picture. This is one of he quintessentially American looks later seen the 1955 James Dean’s “Rebel without a cause”, or 1980’s Indiana Jones series.

After some research, I guess this motorbike was a Harley Davidson FL. Picture left is 1947 model, 1948 was very similar. The V-shaped twin cylinder 1200cc 51 HP engine is very different from the 750 flat boxer engin on the 1938 BMW R71 that was the original master for my Chang Jiang sidecar. However, the period look of the Harley has similarities with the BMW one and I am sure the feeling driving it down the Bund must not be very different.

Isabel’s picture also reminded me of one of my favorite motorbike picture, Robert Doisneau “Les motocyclistes”, shot in Paris in 1953. Although both pictures have a similar feel and were taken only 5 years apart, at that time Old Shanghai had already ceased to exist.